(1) Goodbye England, Hello World

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Day 1 - 04/02/10
I enjoyed my last true luxury I’d have for 5 and a half months, 24 Weeks, that’s a long time. I was cheekily upgraded on my flight from economy to business class (cheers mate) although Simon was left to fend for himself in economy whilst I got pampered. I would’ve downgraded but then it would’ve drawn attention to the upgrade and got the legend in trouble. Anyway, He also got me and Simon free business lounge access which means free: Bacon Sandwiches, Crisps, Bottles of wine, Jack Daniels, All other spirits (JD deserves a special mention I feel), Cereal, Coffee, Internet, and Satellite TV in a cinema room. So Good. We both got some bacon sandwiches and pastries and dug in, thinking that it was too early to drink, probably a good idea. I love free food. Two words destined to cooperate in a friendly way.

Who buys 1000 Cigarettes in duty free? Unless you plan on staying somewhere with cigarettes MORE expensive than in the UK then it’s pretty pointless. Considering cigarettes in India are roughly ¼ of the price (and that’s in Mumbai). On our strolls we both realised how we could see England off in style. A Guinness, terminal 5 has 2 wetherspoons in it and we decided that we should have a “Cold Breakfast” (the barman called it so) and it was all we wanted. Goodbye ignorance, familiarities and comfort.

As we boarded the plane I realised just how ridiculous my seat was, cordoned off reclining seats with foot rests, Complimentary restaurant quality food and high class champagne offered to you all the time. Although I did enjoy my free copy of the financial times (I had to make some attempt to fit in with the 4 other Indian millionaires) it’s still not a seat worth £1000’s, £6000 from London to Sydney I believe.

On the flight I ate some awesome food (see picas) and took some pictures of some awesome mountains in the Middle East out the window which suddenly made me think “oh crap, I’m going to India, I’m leaving home for 24 weeks”. That’s when it hit me. It hit me 3 more times randomly on the plane but each moment of excited apprehension ended in an ear-to-ear smile of “Yeah I’m going to India”

The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane at 1 am was a strong Incense smell coming down the walkway, random. Finally we have another contender for the prestigious title of grumpiest customs officials (previously a competition dominated by JFK airport - New York). In the queue for immigration we waited to be assigned a number by a plump angry woman who looked like she needed a long walk, we both got assigned 15 which seemed completely out of the pattern I was trying to figure out, I think maybe they were here Indian lottery numbers or something. We waited 5 minutes whilst this grumpy looking man, mid thirties and quite stalky (also looked like he needed a long walk) seemingly sat behind his powerful marble desk twiddling his thumbs until he called us forward, muttered ‘write’ and pointed roughly at the ‘address in India’ section whilst looking elsewhere and pushing his glasses further up his nose. I asked if he had a pen, ‘no’, he muttered, calling the next people forward as we took a hurried glance at the address of the salvation army hostel in colaba, Mumbai, where we had booked to stay that night via email. We scrambled for a pen, filled it in, he grunted, stamped our passports and gestured the next people to come forward without any sort of welcome. I turned to Simon “What a hospitable welcome”, and we walked through into what would leave us with our jaws dropped in about 20 minutes.

We got to the prepaid taxi booth, Said “Colaba, Salvation Army Hostel (Red Shield)” She said 400rupees (just over £5) for a 40 minute drive in an awesome little 1950’s British style car (Shiny black paint outside with colourful stickers saying speed, super, fast, and with a bright orange interior) without seatbelts or a working speedo through a city which surpassed what people had told me. The drive was surreal - It didn’t help that the taxi driver spoke very very little English, didn’t really know where he was going and was silent the whole time. The first thing we really noticed was the fact that everyone in Mumbai seemed to be colour-blind, but that also encompassed amber as well as green and red. Red means go, Amber means go, Green means go. Crazy, but the only time we slowed from our seemingly constant acceleration was for speed bumps for which the taxi didn’t just slow but screeched to a near halt, always just in time. Quite disorientating when repeated for every speed bump on a road of 8 or so. Once the journey became smoother we realised just how much poverty was surrounding us, rows and rows of people lined the street and even the roads covered with a blanket, slums cropped up now and again demonstrating an impressive ability to turn junk into walls, windows and ceilings, with multi story houses with shanty ladders leading up the side. I was also impressed with the fact there was electricity in them and lonely planet also claims they pay rent to a landlord although I’m not sure quite how often the system would work as you could just shack up elsewhere. Taxi drivers also seem to love sleeping rough, not in the streets but in their taxi’s parked in the middle of main roads, one door open with one foot hanging out, sprawled across the back seats, often with the keys in the ignition still.

At one point the taxi driver had pulled over and had a rapid Hindi conversation with about 5 or 6 people getting involved - showing them a map printed off from Google the day before with the full address and a clear arrow in the centre of colaba didn’t help apparently. After a quick U-turn, a left and a right, we were there. Finally, a Bed.

Or not, the hostel wasn’t particularly welcoming as the door had been locked and gates locked in front of the door, the doors archway loomed over us as we spoke, checking it was the right place as the door opened but the gate remained shut. The gentlemen standing in front of us, a kind of no nonsense, I can do what I want attitude came from his stance and expression. “We booked 2 dorm beds via email”, I said.
“No Beds” he replied, seemingly unawares of why we were here, I mean, all we had as a booking was an email saying “Your bed has been booked sir, please come” and they were well aware of how late we were arriving. We weren’t impressed. A ray of hope came from 4 American girls who saw our fear and apprehension in our eyes and gave us a card and some terrible directions to a hostel called ‘Delight guesthouse’ which we thanked them for. As we attempted to follow what she said we weaved in-between sleeping people on the street and stray dogs running around merrily licking up anything they could find and playing in the middle of the road. We decided the American’s directions made absolutely no sense so we proceeded to ask sleeping hotel guards around colaba if they had any beds with 4/5 saying no. One place said yes and we headed up, checked out a room, checked out the plumbing, we were ready to barter them down to 600, assuming they had a starting price of around 800. They said 1600 (£16) was the best they could do even after our bartering, so we continued our search, conveniently came across a huge guy from Manchester directing a Korean guy somewhere who just said, bottom of the road, right, left, left. Easy. Men and directions is a much better mix I feel. I can’t even remember the directions the American girl said now, but that was all she needed to say as we now know we were still on the same road as the Salvation Army hotel is but 1 block down. Sigh. After weaving some more around people sleeping rough and ‘you want taxi sir?’, ‘you want taxi friend?’ being shouted at us, a few people asking for money and a random dog following us a little bit we found the porch for the delight hotel, headed up the lift and got a double room for 660rs (£9) which we were fine with as it was now 3am and still a humid and muggy 20 degrees or so. I couldn’t sleep so I enjoyed the 2 huge ceiling fans in the room and wrote my first journal entry which ends “I’m a long way from Home”.

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Comments

[Gill]

Brilliant! Particularly love the comment about free food - Alex you should write! ;-)

[anonymous]

awesome! had a feeling u may have a problem with that hostel but at least u got a bed, 660 aint too bad given ur circumstances!! Can associate with so much of that, love it!

[Dad]

Great blog
Yay! So glad to be receiving these now. Well it sounds like you've developed a taste for expensive business class seats. If you think BA is good, you should experience the new AA business class trans-atlantic (though not against my bank account!!! hehe). Good writing style too .... definitely fun to read!